Beautiful Disaster
by AnnaBelle0
Summary: When a mysterious girl waltzes back into Draco Malfoy's life with some surprising news, will he help her? Will he bury his long-lived hate for Harry Potter and his goody-goody Gryffindor friends? Will he even :gasp!: do something good?
1. Default Chapter

Chapter 1: Uninvited  
  
The storm raged outside the windows of Malfoy Manor; rain splattering against the ancient glass, as the wind roared ruthlessly on the walls of the beautiful structure. Malfoy Manor had stood for an unaccountable amount of years without anyone, so much as breaking into the house and, of course, if someone was brought into the house and was meant not to escape they certainly did not step a foot off the threshold ever again. The Manor was a fortress susceptible to, neither time, nor weather, nor history. It stood and stood and did not move.  
  
But on this night, the night of December 21st, someone got into the house; someone most unexpected. Completely unexpected to the boy who sat in front of the fire warming his pale, perfectly manicured toes in the heat of the flames.  
  
Draco Malfoy sat in his third floor parlor. The room was dark except for the light from the fire, which also produced the only heat. How was the blonde boy to know that, at that very moment, someone was climbing the trellis, cautiously and carefully inching closer and closer to the room where he was enjoying the small amount of warmth from the fire? The wards, obviously no match for this mysterious person, were as silent as death, waiting for a reason to go off. But none would come.  
  
Three stories up, Draco, bored by the dancing flames, picked out a random book from the thousands of volumes that sat, collecting dust, on the shelves around the room. Draco sat back down casually in a velvet green armchair, which, even after so many times of being sat in, retained its stiffness. The boy who, at the time, was sixteen and on Christmas holiday from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wore deep navy blue trousers and a crisp white shirt. If his parents had been home the shirt would've been tucked in, but because of their absence it was, instead, comfortably overlapping the top of his pants. The first few buttons were even left unhooked.  
  
Draco lazily flicked through the pages of the book, every once in awhile he would brush a strand of misplaced flaxen hair out of his eyes. Stopping at a page he recited out loud in his drawling voice: "If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die."  
  
He chuckled to himself, rhetorically asking the empty room, "Who is this? Shakespeare?" Draco flipped to the cover of the book. The title said, in gold lettering: "'Twelfth Night, or What You Will', by William Shakespeare"  
  
"What do you know," Draco said smirking, "it is."  
  
A loud crash sounded from one of the lower floors. Draco didn't jump, nor did he seem to notice the noise at all. Instead, he casually threw the book on a maple coffee table that sat next to the armchair and stood up, muttering about "those blasted house elves".  
  
Draco walked out of the room before he could see a face silhouetted in the shallow light of the flames; there was a person outside the window. The person's wild hair and staring eyes looked colorless from behind the blur of the dripping window, but through the rain and the wind the person managed to take a wand out of their pocket, tap it lightly against the glass, and stow the wand away once again. The lock slipped out of place by itself with a soft click, and the window was open. The person looked around one of the Malfoy Manor rooms, and opened the window stealthily. Stepping lightly on the wood floor, dripping water carelessly, the person entered the third floor parlor, uninvited, and closed the window behind them, with only a muffled thud to announce their arrival.  
  
Down in the kitchens, Draco stopped yelling at an innocent house elf, which was crouched in a corner near the stove, and glanced up as if hit by a sudden thought.  
  
"What is it, sir?" The house elf's voice trembled in fear of being hit again.  
  
"Do you smell that?" Draco asked, all thought of chewing out the house elf now gone.  
  
"What, sir?" The house elf stood up shakily, sniffing around. "Mumfy didn't burn the dinner, sir, no Mumfy wouldn't do that, sir."  
  
Draco waved the house elf's words away impatiently, then shot one slender finger into the air, quieting the elf immediately. Draco closed his eyes, obviously thinking hard, trying to place the smell. Suddenly, he had it.  
  
"Versace Woman." Draco said, simply.  
  
"What?" The house elf replied, very confused.  
  
"Go and prepare a room, on the third floor," Draco told the house elf. "Someone's come to visit."  
  
"But.but," the house elf stammered, "no one answered the door, how did the visitor get in, the bell didn't even ring, how -"  
  
But the house elf was cut off by a voice from behind both him and Draco.  
  
"I don't need to ring some silly bell to get into Malfoy Manor." The voice was female, and Draco knew who it was before he turned around, which he did a few moments after letting the girl's voice sink into his skin. "Refined. Seductive. Elegant." Draco said, seeing the girl he hadn't laid eyes on in two years. "I couldn't forget that smell if I tried."  
  
"But then again, why would you want to?" The girl asked, taking a few steps closer to Draco. He glanced back at the house elf, and motioned for him to leave, then turning back to the mystery girl, he said, "Adele, what a pleasant surprise." 


	2. Missing a Stair

Chapter 2: Missing A Stair  
  
"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Adele answered, flashing Draco a brilliant smile. Her long raven hair was pulled back into a messy bun, a few wavy strands had escaped and fell in front of her big brown eyes. Draco looked the girl up and down. Her scarlet robes were tailor made, as they always were, and a white shirt with a plunging neck line told him she hadn't changed a bit. Her shoes, heels, were hiding toe nails that were painted blood red, if Draco's memory served.  
"What brings you here, in the rain?" Draco asked, suddenly realizing that she was completely dry, and must have cast a quick spell before stepping into the house.  
"What brings me here, at all, you should ask Draco." Adele slipped her delicate gloves off, finger by finger, and laid them on a nearby table. "We haven't.been in touch.in quite awhile."  
"No, we haven't." Draco seemed to tense up at her words, as if remembering a past wound.  
"Well, I figured that was completely ridiculous, and why shouldn't we talk, just because of, our.past."  
"Yes, because of our.past." Draco repeated. He remembered running with her through the halls of the Manor, trying to get away from their parents, he remembered kissing her in that velvet green armchair he had sat in, not ten minutes ago. That was over now though.  
"The past is the past," Adele said, reading his thoughts as she always used to be able to. She looked uncomfortable for one second, then quickly said, "Get some tea going, would you? It's terribly cold outside." She walked out of the room, leaving Draco standing there. He collected his thoughts, and went to get the tea kettle, but obviously thought better of it, and called a house elf to do the job. Then he walked out of the kitchen, taking the gloves Adele had forgotten and found her stretched out in a chaise lounge on the next floor up. She knew her way around the castle better than he did.  
"You forgot these, my dear," Draco said, placing the gloves near her head, which was stretched in an oddly melodramatic angle, her hand covering her eyes.  
"Thank you, Draco," she answered, not even looking at the gloves. Instead she uncovered her eyes and rose into a sitting position, glancing around at the room they were in. Draco took a seat in an antique chair next to her. "Does this house ever change, Draco?" she asked.  
"No," he answered simply. Draco studied her face carefully, which, as he noticed, didn't ever change either. "Why are you really here, Adele?"  
She looked him square in the eye, and smiled sweetly.  
"So I can't come and see you for no reason at all? I can't just pop in for a spot of tea - " The house elf came in with the tea and a tray and set it down on a table " - just to see you?"  
"No," Draco said, walking over to the tea, and pouring a cup for Adele. He remembered how she took her tea, and added milk, sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon. He went over to hand it to her.  
"Well then, fine, the truth is that I came here because I love this house, and where else should I spend my last days then the place where I lived my happiest ones." Adele took the cup and an irritated look came over her soft features as she saw Draco laughing at her. "What, you don't believe me?" she asked him.  
"You're last days? What does that mean? Are you dying?" Draco said, pouring himself a cup and sitting next to Adele on the lounge. "I didn't think you could die." He smirked at her.  
"Well I can," she said, becoming more angry. "And I will.soon. And I don't find your lack of concern very comforting." She got up and pretended to look at a painting on the wall opposite Draco.  
"You're not dying." Draco, suddenly behind her, whispered in her ear. She jumped slightly. She had forgotten how quickly Draco moved. "You're lying," Draco said, and turned around to return to the lounge.  
"You know better, " Adele whispered dangerously, "then to think I'd ever lie to you." Draco looked at the anger in her eyes, and realization hit him. He felt something very nearly like his stomach dropping out. Adele was dying. She was really, truly, dying. Either that or this was some very rude practical joke that wasn't in the least amusing.  
"You,.you're serious - I mean, well, - that is.," Draco was for the first time in his life at a loss for words. A loud crash sounded from one of the upstairs floors. "Bloody hell!" he yelled angrily, looking up to the ceiling. "Keep those stupid elves away from my parlor!" he yelled at a house elf who had just come into the room to take the tea tray away. The elf looked at him incredulously.  
"That isn't one of the house elves, sir." The elf shivered in fright in his master's presence. "All the elves are down in the kitchen. There is someone else up there, sir." The elf took the tray away, bowing slightly, and ran out of the room. Draco stared at the empty space where the elf had just stood. He looked at the ceiling again, wondering if he had planned having a visitor that he had just forgotten in the surprise of his ex-girlfriend's arrival. He looked at the ceiling again, then remembering Adele, he looked at her for a moment, saying,  
"I'll be back." Draco took off up one of the oak staircases, in search of the person - or thing that had made the noise. Adele scoffed at his impromptu exit and sat down delicately on the lounge, waiting for Draco to return. 


End file.
